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As a child my ambition was to create music, initially with the organ from the Catholic tradition, and then through popular music when social integration became of paramount concern during adolescence.  I wanted to do it all; performing, composing, recording, arranging. Except for very basic theory and ear training when I was with the Atlanta boy choir, I had very little effective training in music until I was 18, and then only for about four months when I started at DeKalb Community College where I learned how little I really knew about music . 

I spent the next five years trying to remediate this situation while living the life of the struggling wanna be musician, learning on my own what I could about a variety of instruments and sound synthesis, not to mention picking up a lot of bad habits, before I realized that the instruction I had received in those four months at DCC proved to be the most effective means for me to learn what I needed to learn to do what I wanted to do musically.  I reentered the music program at DCC and over the course of the next four years completed an associate’s degree in music while working full-time at the Georgia State University computer center. 

It was during this time that I met my wife and, reassessing priorities, placed my dreams of creating music on the back burner in favor of the needs of maintaining a family.  During my working career, while doing my best to at least maintain, if not expand, my musical skills, I made excuses as to why I couldn’t pursue music as a career, chief of which was that I wasn’t good enough because I didn’t have the time to practice to get good enough.  Still, the desire to do so was always cooking just below the surface.  

As I contemplated the prospect of retirement, I came to realize my excuses for failing to produce the music I wanted to produce would soon no longer be valid.  I began to devote more time to preparing for a post retirement musical career by doing my best to improve my proficiency on my primary instrument, the piano. While I am still not satisfied with my playing ability, I intend to use the next four years as a student at UGA’s Hugh Hodgson School of Music to do my best to not only improve my performance abilities but to use the artificial deadlines imposed by the pervasive assignments of an academic environment to begin to fulfill my varied musical ambitions.  

There are many areas of music in which I am interested in pursuing. Because my interests are so broad I need to be mindful to have a balanced approach in choosing what to focus on, whether it’s learning to improve my playing on any specific instrument, performance techniques, or applying theoretical concepts to compositions or improvisations, I intend to spend most of my time working to produce music.  While I consider the piano to be my primary instrument, I do have some familiarity with a broad cross section of instruments and do not wish to neglect these. I also have strong interests in composition, music education, recording technology, and just about anything that will help me to satisfy my desire to realize the sounds I hear in my head as tangible musical productions, whether they be real time performances, sound recordings, or a written compositions.